How do you plan to redeem your rewards?

Most “best card” tools match you to a card using a category label — you say you travel, they show you travel cards. CardFinder does something different: it models what each card would actually have earned you, in rupees, against the spending you describe.

Your answers are converted into monthly spending across categories, and every card in our database is run through its own earning rules for each of those categories. That matters because headline reward rates are rarely what you get. A card advertising 5% on online spending often caps that at a few hundred points a month, after which you drop to the base rate. CardFinder applies those monthly and annual caps, along with tiered rates that change once you cross a spending threshold, rather than assuming the advertised rate applies to every rupee.

Points are then converted at redemption value, not face value. One reward point is not one rupee — what it is worth depends on how you redeem it, and the gap between transferring to an airline programme and taking a statement credit can be two or three times. You tell us how you prefer to redeem, and cards are ranked on the value you would realistically extract, not the value the marketing implies.

The result is a ranking specific to your spending. A card that tops a generic “best travel card” list can finish mid-table for someone who spends mostly on groceries and fuel, and that is the point.